Why has female genital mutilation survived for so long?

By Innocent Chia

Imagine what eating your favorite food, or any dish, will feel like without the ability of your tongue to taste it, to lick and to swallow the food. That is female genital mutilation. Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is predominantly the partial or total removal of the clitoris and the labia minora, with or without excision of the labia majora. The tongue is to the mouth and eating, what the clitoris is to the vagina and female sexuality and sensuality. There is abounding empirical evidence that the route to female sexual pleasure passes through an arousal of the clitoris. Would you therefore, of sound mental and physical health, and of your own volition, cut your tongue or allow its cutting?

 If our answers are identical, it is a resounding NO! As far as ideas for stomping and stamping out this practice, my submission, therefore, is that the questions must be that of finding out "who does this barbaric and ancient practice benefit and why does it persist?"

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